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The Beautiful Girls love Brazil

Itacaré’s visiting teacher and respected journalist, Bella Papadopoulou, met with The Beautiful Girls on their last tour in Brazil. Read what they have to say about love and surfing!The Beautiful Girls – a band that has been linked to surf culture all across the world, brought their guitars to Brazil to play some tunes. Bella Papadopoulou met up with Mat McHugh, Paulie Bromley and Bruce Braybrooke to discuss surfing, music and Brazil.

Two intensive weeks and four live shows later, the band arrived in Salvador in order to play one last time for the Brazilian audience before heading back to Australia.

”This tour has really been full on! We did some great shows and had an amazing time. It was an intense and hectic schedule and now all our energy is drained, but it has really been worth it.” says Bruce.It seems that Brazil just can’t get enough of The Beautiful Girls, making them come back each year with this one being their third big tour across the country.”I think the reason that we have a big audience here is because our two countries – Brazil and Australia – have a strong affinity when it comes to culture, climate and music and we tend to like the same lifestyle” says Paulie.”The Brazilian audience is great. Sometimes it can be difficult because of the language barrier. Our songs are all about the lyrics so sometimes I wonder if the correct meaning is coming across, but there is certainly a lot of enthusiasm” Mat adds.And what about the surf?

”My favourite spot so far is Guarajá. I surfed in Rio as well and it was really fun but unfortunately I have not had the time to fully check the surf out but I know that there are many good surf spots here. I would love to make a road trip along the coast and drive all the way from Sao Paolo up until Rio De Janerio” says Mat.

Paulie put his bass away and grabbed the surfboard too. ”After the end of our first tour in Brazil in 2009 I stayed for one month and back then I surfed in Maresias As it was the only time I surfed here, it remains my favourite spot” he says.

Once more, The Beautiful Girls were here on tour in Brazil meanwhile the WCT were being held in the country, this time in Rio De Janeiro. On their tour in 2010 the band played in Ubatuba during the annual championship and claimed that the vibe was really good during the contest . However, the competing part of surfing often raises the question whether this might interfere with the pleasant and relaxing part of surfing.

”It is an individual choice for every surfer to make. If you want to compete, then compete and if you don’t then don’t. There is no real judgement on that” says Paulie. Bruce agrees and says that ”by competing you get to spend your life doing something that you love but if you don’t want to then do something else”.

A message of love

There is one message that The Beautiful Girls want to pass through their music and it is summed up in one single word: love.

”Life is hard enough as it is with all the intolerance, hatred and disasters in this world, but at the heart of every human being lays always the same concern and that is to love and to be loved in return. This is what we want to put out through our music, the positivity and the love,” Mat says, speaking for all the members in the band.

”Finally we would like to thank everyone in Brazil for coming to the show and supporting us all these years. We love Brazil and will come back as soon as we can, to meet everyone somewhere out there. We are always making music and life is long so there will be many more records to come” the band says.